chuckakers

Think less, fly more. That's the advice I give for freefall and canopy control. Don't worry so much about the minutia. The key in the early stages is to put yourself at the assigned places over the ground at the assigned altitudes. To do that think backwards. If you want to be at a specific spot at a specific altitude, that will be easiest if you are at the position you are supposed to be at the checkpoint above that one. Let's begin... If you are downwind of your target facing into the wind at your assigned altitude to begin final approach, you will land where you are supposed to. If you are where you are supposed to be at the assigned altitude to begin flying your pattern, you will be able to be downwind of your target facing into the wind at your assigned altitude to begin final approach. If you are where you are supposed to be at altitudes between the start of your pattern and your deployment position you will be able to be where you are supposed to be when it's time to start flying your pattern. That just leaves one thing - being where you are supposed to be when you exit the plane. Leave that to your instructor for now. Remember that good canopy control is a lot like staying within the boundaries of an invisible funnel. Up high the margins are big. If you are a bit out of position it's not a big deal. You have the time and altitude to make corrections. As you get lower, the "funnel" of success gets smaller. If you are too far from the correct place, you will be outside the boundaries of the funnel without sufficient gliding capability to end up where you want to. The closer (lower) you get the more critical being in the correct place becomes. Using constant checkpoints of altitude vs position will keep you inside the funnel and make being "downwind of your target facing into the wind at your assigned altitude to begin final approach" a piece of cake. An then of course there's the flare..... Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

I think the instructor needs to go back to gear school. If your pilot chute or bridal is firmly attached to you AND your main container is closed, nothing is going to rip off anything whether you have cut away or not. Pulling your reserve ripcord does nothing more than deploy the reserve in ANY circumstance. Having an RSL will make no difference and neither will cutting away or not cutting away as long as your main container is closed. Understand this. An RSL pulls the reserve pin if you cutaway the main (and ONLY if the main is out so it can jettison), but an RSL DOES NOT deploy or cut away the main when you deploy the reserve. What the instructor may have meant is that if you cut away and the main container somehow opens while the pilot chute is entangled, the main may leave as designed and that could indeed be a problem because of the entanglement. However, if the main container comes open and you haven't cut away, you may end up with a horse shoe malfunction which will still create the drag that the instructor was warning you about. Without some specific conversation there's no way for me to know what your true understanding of your gear is, but please take this advice. Learn and understand EXACTLY and COMPLETELY how your gear works. Understand what makes what happen, and what DOESN'T make things happen. There have been deaths caused by an incomplete understanding of equipment function, even including a highly experienced jumper who bought an RSL-equipped rig for the first time in his career. Understanding gear is a lot more than understanding 3 handles. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Yes, I am aware of the bungee system. Sorry, I missed Masterriger1's comment about the uncocking being a minor amount. I agree on that but I will add that folks reading this thread should understand that he said "a little" uncocking, and understand that even a partially uncocked p/c can fail to create enough drag to pull the main pin. Still, the best method I know of to be sure the p/c is/stays cocked is to confirm it is cocked AFTER the canopy is in the d-bag. And get a gear check. NOT getting one has cost many, many reserve rides, injuries, and deaths. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

You beat me to it! A lot of people do not understand the theory of what you just said though. For you that do not understand this, parasitic drag cocks the PC. Which means that if your kill line PC has moved a little, do not worry because the same parasitic drag will re-cock your PC unless the kill line is caught inside the bag. MEL If that's the case, why bother cocking them at all? And if you're correct, how is it people who fail to cock their p/c often (most of the time?) have p/c in tow mals? Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

I could care less about anything prior to my cocking of the p/c AFTER my canopy is laid out. I cock my p/c twice. Once just before I bag the canopy and again as a confirmation after it's in the bag with a few line stows completed. One of the best ways to insure your p/c is cocked is to re-cock and check it once your deployment bag has stows in place. It's virtually impossible to disturb the cocked position of the p/c once everything is tucked inside the D-bag. I add to this the one sure-fire way to be sure it's cocked. Get a gear check FROM ANOTHER JUMPER prior to boarding the plan. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Thanks, DJ. I jump with several guys who jump older, faster opening canopies and don't jump AAD's. They are quite comfortable and competent pitching at 2K. That said, the bulk of jumpers today are gonna pitch well above that so the old dudes would just be burnin' lonely altitude anyway. Gotta draw a line somewhere, and I don't think "up" is a bad direction. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

We will have to wait to see the language used. 2,500 for what? Pack opening? Deployment initiation? Saddled up? Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

It's on the jumper as well. No DZO should require jumpers to exit with less than a correct aircraft configuration, no pilot should allow it, and no jumper should DO IT. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

The term comes from when a group is of sufficient size that the first people to exit - those outside the plane - will need to "float up" to the base that exits after them. Floaters float up to the base, divers dive down to it. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

To Skydivebeauty: make sure you are ready to deal with guys like this. To Franky: keep it in your pants, brother. We respect our lady jumpers. Leave the hit jobs for beer-thirty. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

That's crap. Accepted skydiving procedures do indeed include right of ways, and if you skydive the same way you advocate, it is YOU that is dangerous. You DO have a responsibility to yield to those below you, and if you don't agree with that I suggest you get the hell off the plane. You must believe that others think of "right of way" as a law, which of course it isn't. The term "right of way" refers to an agreed upon procedure, not an absolute. No one here has said that the person below has the right to do as they please without regard to what's happening around them because of a right of way privilege. Right of way is a concept designed to take variables and confusion out of a situation, which is crucial in skydiving where decisions must be made split-second in an environment where the ability to do so is the difference between life and death. As I mentioned in a previous post, it IS the responsibility of every jumper to check the air above - which can be accomplished without a barrel roll - and give a clear signal before throwing out. What the "right of way" folks are saying is that following a "low man has the right of way" procedure is safer than people taking their attention off targets below with a full body twirl, which can create a whole new world of deadly possibilities. No one is arguing that we don't need to clear the air above. We are arguing about the safest way to get it done. Unless a person has a mobility issue, there is NO NEED to perform a barrel roll to clear the air above, which brings into question the concept of performing a barrel roll and taking one's eyes off the area below, which IS the area we are responsible to give right of way to. Get it? Every jumper IS RESPONSIBLE to YIELD TO the jumper below them. It's a ONE WAY STREET. You don't have to agree with it, but it's the accepted procedure and thus you are OBLIGATED to follow it. And just for fun, let's try a different comparison. Try telling a cop that the guy in front of you in traffic should have gotten out of the way so you wouldn't have slammed him in the rear. Argue all you want, but it will be YOU that gets the ticket and YOUR insurance company that pays the claim. Our vision is limited behind us, whether we stay on our bellies or barrel roll and get a "flash' of a person above us that still doesn't pinpoint whether they are a factor or not. And finally, since you are schooling folks, let's school you. You said: "If you're leaving ANY part of your survival up to someone else, then you clearly don't fully understand the situation you're putting yourself in and how it needs to be dealt with." That is a very foolish comment and one I hope you will reconsider. The truth is that every one of us relies on everyone in our group for our survival on every jump. None of us can see everything at every moment on every skydive, and thus we ARE dependent on our fellow jumpers for our survival on every jump. It's also the reason we have procedures - like focusing most of our attention on the person below, not the person above who should be following the same procedure. I like your "it's on me" attitude, but when a jumper takes that to a point where they focus so much on their own safety that they ignore best practices that are in the best interest of EVERYONE'S safety, that's a problem. If you can safely perform a barrel roll to clear your air while breaking off, good for you. But my bet is you can do the same thing without a barrel roll, and that would be a safer way to go. Aww, geez, now that's why I don't post on here very often. There are always people lying in wait to take one statement out of context and convolute it into what they'd like it to mean so that they can get all haughty and throw down an argument. Chuck, if you've read the entire thread, then you'd know from my previous post that I do not practice, nor do I advocate, the barrel roll method of clearing your airspace. And if what I've said in totality makes you think that I believe in the things that you're railing against, then perhaps you should move to Hollywood and get a job writing for the soap operas. Chuck, both you and billvon, by the tone of your posts, have missed my point, yet within your posts, you've both MADE the same point as I have. I was trying to emphasize the point because I'm reading in here stuff like 'just wave off and wait a few seconds and let the other guy handle it', and 'watch the guy below you and let the guy above worry about you'. To be sure, in skydiving there are established protocols for breakoffs, canopy patterns, and what-not that include rights of way, and I teach, preach, and practice them every week. When I say 'nobody has the right of way', I do not mean that you should blow off yielding to the other guy's right of way. What I AM saying is that you should not bet your life on the other guy yielding to yours. Well then, never mind. I didn't notice that you posted previously. I was addressing your post the way I understood it. I obviously didn't catch the context, but that means others - including the all important knowledge-sucking noobs - might not have either. Without respect to your post, my point stands. For the barrel rollers out there, if you can pull off a super-clean b/r while tracking have at it, but STOP advocating the technique as a standard procedure for all jumpers. It doesn't work for most jumpers and wil only serve to eventually get folks in trouble. Besides, IT ISN'T NECESSARY! Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Don't worry about your age, but do worry about losing friends. A good manifester sometimes has to be stern with folks, and that can alienate you from the crowd. My daughter was the manifester at my DZ at 14 years old and did a fine job. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

I wasn't trying to imply that you aren't old school enough, if that's how you took my quote, I apologize :) I certainly am not dated far enough, but I blame my parents. re: Racer. Actually, you may be referring to the SST tandem (pic attached- single reserve risers and R3 main canopy releases). But either way, I've jumped stuff at the DZ that was many years older than me. It's funny what kind of responses some people get. Not all. We're all good. Love the reminiscing. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

original Infinity (actually the Northern Lite) was made by Paraphernalia with a 2 pin reseve container, just like the original RTS (alrtough the RTS has back mounted reserve pins, and they are lined up vertically as opposed to horizontally) PS I am gald to have had people much older than me to have made my arguments :) I also date far enough back to remember those. I also remember when the Mirage had the reserve pin (or pins, I think) on the back pad like a Racer. And how 'bout the old SST's without riser covers! Probably couldn't get on most jump planes with one of those today! And I actually jump with a guy occasionally that still jumps a Swift System. He teases the youngsters about his rig being older than they are!! Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Let us not forget that the Mirage TSO was originally for the Rapid Transit System; Similar situations. DRASTICALLY different timelines. Not sure if we're talking about a) the introduction dates for the Rapid Transit vs. early Paraphernalia Infinities or whatever they were called. or b) the introduction dates for the new Mirage vs the new Infinity. I don't know for sure when the new rigs were introduced, but from checking old websites on archive.org I get the impression that the new VSE Infinity was introduced around 1999, and the Mirage around 1998, or slightly earlier. Not a huge difference on that criterion. In any case, I'm not sure if it is better to be "newer" or "more established". So maybe the debate should just be about the current modern rigs... My bad. I wasn't aware that the "new" Infinity went that far back. I don't remember seeing the Infinity in Texas that early. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

That's crap. Accepted skydiving procedures do indeed include right of ways, and if you skydive the same way you advocate, it is YOU that is dangerous. You DO have a responsibility to yield to those below you, and if you don't agree with that I suggest you get the hell off the plane. You must believe that others think of "right of way" as a law, which of course it isn't. The term "right of way" refers to an agreed upon procedure, not an absolute. No one here has said that the person below has the right to do as they please without regard to what's happening around them because of a right of way privilege. Right of way is a concept designed to take variables and confusion out of a situation, which is crucial in skydiving where decisions must be made split-second in an environment where the ability to do so is the difference between life and death. As I mentioned in a previous post, it IS the responsibility of every jumper to check the air above - which can be accomplished without a barrel roll - and give a clear signal before throwing out. What the "right of way" folks are saying is that following a "low man has the right of way" procedure is safer than people taking their attention off targets below with a full body twirl, which can create a whole new world of deadly possibilities. No one is arguing that we don't need to clear the air above. We are arguing about the safest way to get it done. Unless a person has a mobility issue, there is NO NEED to perform a barrel roll to clear the air above, which brings into question the concept of performing a barrel roll and taking one's eyes off the area below, which IS the area we are responsible to give right of way to. Get it? Every jumper IS RESPONSIBLE to YIELD TO the jumper below them. It's a ONE WAY STREET. You don't have to agree with it, but it's the accepted procedure and thus you are OBLIGATED to follow it. And just for fun, let's try a different comparison. Try telling a cop that the guy in front of you in traffic should have gotten out of the way so you wouldn't have slammed him in the rear. Argue all you want, but it will be YOU that gets the ticket and YOUR insurance company that pays the claim. Our vision is limited behind us, whether we stay on our bellies or barrel roll and get a "flash' of a person above us that still doesn't pinpoint whether they are a factor or not. And finally, since you are schooling folks, let's school you. You said: "If you're leaving ANY part of your survival up to someone else, then you clearly don't fully understand the situation you're putting yourself in and how it needs to be dealt with." That is a very foolish comment and one I hope you will reconsider. The truth is that every one of us relies on everyone in our group for our survival on every jump. None of us can see everything at every moment on every skydive, and thus we ARE dependent on our fellow jumpers for our survival on every jump. It's also the reason we have procedures - like focusing most of our attention on the person below, not the person above who should be following the same procedure. I like your "it's on me" attitude, but when a jumper takes that to a point where they focus so much on their own safety that they ignore best practices that are in the best interest of EVERYONE'S safety, that's a problem. If you can safely perform a barrel roll to clear your air while breaking off, good for you. But my bet is you can do the same thing without a barrel roll, and that would be a safer way to go. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

My old B-4 rig had a similar setup. People just need to understand that what is 'new' is not always new. JerryBaumchen Would love to see it. But if ya gotta go back to B-4's to make a comparison, that's not much of a comparison. Is an innovation on a horse saddle the same as an innovation in a Corvette driver's seat? Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Let us not forget that the Mirage TSO was originally for the Rapid Transit System; TSO C23b in the Low Speed category. Just to keep things on an even plain, JerryBaumchen Similar situations. DRASTICALLY different timelines. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

both great long time manufacturers. If you are in PNW you are obligated to get an Infinity. Otherwise you will be ok with either. Not sure what you mean by "long time". Velocity (Infinity) is not the same company/design/engineering as the original Infinity maker. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Have never owned either, but have been a gear dealer for years and seen hundreds of both, before and after thousands of jumps. Hands down, Mirage. Might give the Curv a look. Of all the brands/models out there, I highly recommend Rigging Innovations products and the Curv is truly a next-generation rig. Top notch quality and some of the coolest new stuff you will see on a rig anywhere. It won't be long before you will see rigs with copies of the bio yoke on them. Super comfortable and what it does for weight distribution is like nothing ever seen in the sport. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

You didn't mention the cause of the mal. Do you know? Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Call Rigging Innovations. They are always ready to answer questions and lend a hand. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

I have HMA 500 lines on my Velocity and they show no unusual wear. I've helped a number of people order the bags and every Vector I sell gets the bag. None of those people have had any issues. I also talk to a lot of people at various DZs around the country and I've not heard of any wear problems. One thing that helps is that the mouth of the bag - where the lines play out - is covered and lined with cotton material that greatly reduces the friction heat that you normally get with a synthetic fabric. It was one of the things discovered during the testing of the bag. Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.. Very informative - thanks! Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Can you explain? If the bag is the appropriate size/shape for a container, are you saying there is a potential problem based on the stowless nature of the bag? Many/most of them change where the bulk of the lines are located. Combine that with the possibility that non-original mfg bags can have slight but important differences in the actual shape of the bag can mean that they don't pack up the same in the container. So it isn't the stowless bag that's the issue. It's the shape/dimensions of the bag itself. That is a problem whether using a stowless or traditional bag. Assuming you are correct, it's also a classic case of too much main for too little container. Everyone wants to jump a lunchbox. Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX

Can you explain? If the bag is the appropriate size/shape for a container, are you saying there is a potential problem based on the stowless nature of the bag?some "super bomb proof" riser covers will not open at the correct moment with stow less/semi-stowless d-bags. Which ones? And did you hear that through the grapevine or the manufacturer(s) in question? Chuck Akers D-10855 Houston, TX